Complete Prose Works Part 55

folks mostly farmers and sailors--on my father's side, of English--on my mother's (Van Velsor's), from Hollandic immigration. There was, first and last, a large family of children; (I was the second.) We moved to Brooklyn while I was still a little one in frocks--and there in B.

I grew up out of frocks--then as child and boy went to the public schools--then to work in a printing office. When only sixteen or seventeen years old, and for three years afterward, I went to teaching country schools down in Queens and Suffolk counties, Long Island, and "boarded round." Then, returning to New York, work'd as printer and writer, (with an occasional shy at "poetry.")

1848-'9.--About this time--after ten or twelve years of experiences and work and lots of fun in New York and Brooklyn--went off on a leisurely journey and working expedition (my brother Jeff with me) through all the Middle States, and down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Lived a while in New Orleans, and work'd there. (Have lived quite a good deal in the Southern States.) After a time, plodded back northward, up the Mississippi, the Missouri, &c., and around to, and by way of, the great lakes, Michigan, Huron and Erie, to Niagara Falls and Lower Canada--finally returning through Central New York, and down the Hudson.

1852-'54--Occupied in house-building in Brooklyn. (For a little while of the first part of that time in printing a daily and weekly paper.)

1855.--Lost my dear father this year by death.... Commenced putting "Leaves of Gra.s.s" to press, for good--after many MSS. doings and undoings--(I had great trouble in leaving out the stock "poetical"

touches--but succeeded at last.) The book has since had some eight hitches or stages of growth, with one annex, (and another to come out in 1891, which will complete it.)

1862.--In December of this year went down to the field of war in Virginia. My brother George reported badly wounded in the Fredericksburg fight. (For 1863 and '64, see "Specimen Days.") 1865 to '71--Had a place as clerk (till well on in '73) in the Attorney.

General's Office, Was.h.i.+ngton. (New York and Brooklyn seem more like _home_, as I was born near, and brought up in them, and lived, man and boy, for 30 years. But I lived some years in Was.h.i.+ngton, and have visited, and partially lived, in most of the Western and Eastern cities.)

1873.--This year lost, by death, my dear dear mother--and, just before, my sister Martha--the two best and sweetest women I have ever seen or known, or ever expect to see. Same year, February, a sudden climax and prostration from paralysis. Had been simmering inside for several years; broke out during those times temporarily, and then went over. But now a serious attack, beyond cure. Dr. Drinkard, my Was.h.i.+ngton physician, (and a first-rate one,) said it was the result of too extreme bodily and emotional strain continued at Was.h.i.+ngton and "down in front," in 1863, '4 and '5. I doubt if a heartier, stronger, healthier physique, more balanced upon itself, or more unconscious, more sound, ever lived, from 1835 to '72. My greatest call (Quaker) to go around and do what I could there in those war-scenes where I had fallen, among the sick and wounded, was, that I seem'd to be _so strong and well_. (I consider'd myself invulnerable.) But this last attack shatter'd me completely. Quit work at Was.h.i.+ngton, and moved to Camden, New Jersey--where I have lived since, receiving many buffets and some precious caresses--and now write these lines. Since then, (1874-'91) a long stretch of illness, or half-illness, with occasional lulls. During these latter, have revised and printed over all my books--bro't out "November Boughs"--and at intervals leisurely and exploringly travel'd to the Prairie States, the Rocky Mountains, Canada, to New York, to my birthplace in Long Island, and to Boston. But physical disability and the war-paralysis above alluded to to have settled upon me more and more the last year or so. Am now (1891) domicil'd, and have been for some years, in this little old cottage and lot in Mickle street, Camden, with a house-keeper and man nurse. Bodily I am completely disabled, but still write for publication.

I keep generally buoyant spirits, write often as there comes any lull in physical sufferings, get in the sun and down to the river whenever I can, retain fair appet.i.te, a.s.similation and digestion, sensibilities acute as ever, the strength and volition of my right arm good, eyesight dimming, but brain normal, and retain my heart's and soul's unmitigated faith not only in their own original literary plans, but in the essential bulk of American humanity east and west, north and south, city and country, through thick and thin, to the last. Nor must I forget, in conclusion, a special, prayerful, thankful G.o.d's blessing to my dear firm friends and personal helpers, men and women, home and foreign, old and young.

OUT IN THE OPEN AGAIN

_From the Camden Post, April 16, '91_.

Walt Whitman got out in the mid-April sun and warmth of yesterday, propelled in his wheel chair, the first time after four months of imprisonment in his sick room. He has had the worst winter yet, mainly from grippe and gastric troubles, and threaten'd blindness; but keeps good spirits, and has a new little forthcoming book in the printer's hands.

AMERICA'S BULK AVERAGE

If I were ask'd _persona_ to specify the one point of America's people on which I mainly rely, I should say the final average or bulk quality of the whole.

Happy indeed w'd I consider myself to give a fair reflection and representation of even a portion of shows, questions, humanity, events, unfoldings, thoughts, &c. &c., my age in these States.

The great social, political, historic function of my time has been of course the attempted secession war.

And was there not something grand, and an inside proof of perennial grandeur, in that war! We talk of our age's and the States'

materialism--and it is too true. But how amid the whole sordidness--the entire devotion of America, at any price, to pecuniary success, merchandise--disregarding all but business and profit--this war for a bare idea and abstraction--a mere, at bottom, heroic dream and reminiscence--burst forth in its great devouring flame and conflagration quickly and fiercely spreading and raging, and enveloping all, defining in two conflicting ideas--first the Union cause--second _the other_, a strange deadly interrogation point, hard to define--Can we not now safely confess it?--with magnificent rays, streaks of n.o.blest heroism, fort.i.tude, perseverance, and even conscientiousness, through its pervadingly malignant darkness. What an area and rounded field, upon the whole--the spirit, arrogance, grim tenacity of the South--the long stretches of murky gloom--the general National Will below and behind and comprehending all--not once really wavering, not a day, not an hour--What could be, or even can be, grander?

As in that war, its four years--as through the whole history and development of the New World--these States through all trials, processes, eruptions, deepest dilemmas, (often straining, tugging at society's heart-strings, as if some divine curiosity would find out how much this democracy could stand,) have so far finally and for more than a century best justified themselves by the average impalpable quality and personality of the bulk, the People _en ma.s.se_.... I am not sure but my main and chief however indefinite claim for any page of mine w'd be its derivation, or seeking to derive itself, f'm that average quality of the American bulk, the people, and getting back to it again.

LAST SAVED ITEMS

_I'm a vast batch left to oblivion_.

In its highest aspect, and striking its grandest average, essential Poetry expresses and goes along with essential Religion--has been and is more the adjunct, and more serviceable to that true religion (for of course there is a false one and plenty of it) than all the priests and creeds and churches that now exist or have ever existed--even while the temporary prevalent theory and practice of poetry is merely one-side and ornamental and dainty--a love-sigh, a bit of jewelry, a feudal conceit, an ingenious tale or intellectual _finesse_, adjusted to the low taste and calibre that will always sufficiently generally prevail--(ranges of stairs necessary to ascend the higher.)

The sectarian, church and doctrinal, follies, crimes, fanaticisms, aggregate and individual, so rife all thro' history, are proofs of the radicalness and universality of the indestructible element of humanity's Religion, just as much as any, and are the other side of it. Just as disease proves health, and is the other side of it.... The philosophy of Greece taught normality and the beauty of life. Christianity teaches how to endure illness and death. I have wonder'd whether a third philosophy fusing both, and doing full justice to both, might not be outlined.

It will not be enough to say that no Nation ever achiev'd materialistic, political and money-making successes, with general physical comfort, as fully as the United States of America are to-day achieving them. I know very well that those are the indispensable foundations--the _sine qua non_ of moral and heroic (poetic) fruitions to come. For if those pre-successes were all--if they ended at that--if nothing more were yielded than so far appears--a gross materialistic prosperity only--America, tried by subtlest tests, were a failure--has not advanced the standard of humanity a bit further than other nations. Or, in plain terms, has but inherited and enjoy'd the results of ordinary claims and preceding ages.

Nature seem'd to use me a long while--myself all well, able, strong and happy--to portray power, freedom, health. But after a while she seems to fancy, may-be I can see and understand it all better by being deprived of most of those.

How difficult it is to add anything more to literature--and how unsatisfactory for any earnest spirit to serve merely the amus.e.m.e.nt of the mult.i.tude! (It even seems to me, said H. Heine, more invigorating to accomplish something bad than something empty.)

The Highest said: Don't let us begin so low--isn't our range too coa.r.s.e--too gross?... The Soul answer'd: No, not when we consider what it is all for--the end involved in Time and s.p.a.ce.

Essentially my own printed records, all my volumes, are doubtless but off-hand utterances f'm Personality spontaneous, following implicitly the inscrutable command, dominated by that Personality, vaguely even if decidedly, and with little or nothing of plan, art, erudition, &c. If I have chosen to hold the reins, the mastery, it has mainly been to give the way, the power, the road, to the invisible steeds. (I wanted to see how a Person of America, the last half of the 19th century, w'd appear, but quite freely and fairly in honest type.)

Haven't I given specimen clues, if no more? At any rate I have written enough to weary myself--and I will dispatch it to the printers, and cease. But how much--how many topics, of the greatest pointand cogency, I am leaving untouch'd!

WALT WHITMAN'S LAST [49]

_Good-Bye my Fancy_.--concluding Annex to _Leaves of Gra.s.s_.

"The Highest said: Don't let us begin so low--isn't our range too coa.r.s.e--too gross?... The Soul answer'd: No, not when we consider what it is all for--the end involved in Time and s.p.a.ce."--_An item from last page of "Good-Bye."_

H. Heine's first principle of criticising a book was, What motive is the author trying to carry out, or express or accomplish? and the second, Has he achiev'd it?

The theory of my _Leaves of Gra.s.s_ as a composition of verses has been from first to last, (if I am to give impromptu a hint of the spinal marrow of the business, and sign it with my name,) to thoroughly possess the mind, memory, cognizance of the author himself, with everything beforehand--a full armory of concrete actualities, observations, humanity, past poems, ballads, facts, technique, war and peace, politics, North and South, East and West, nothing too large or too small, the sciences as far as possible--and above all America and the present--after and out of which the subject of the poem, long or short, has been invariably turned over to his Emotionality, even Personality, to be shaped thence; and emerges strictly therefrom, with all its merits and demerits on its head. Every page of my poetic or attempt at poetic utterance therefore smacks of the living physical ident.i.ty, date, environment, individuality, probably beyond anything known, and in style often offensive to the conventions.

This new last cl.u.s.ter, _Good-By my Fancy_ follows suit, and yet with a difference. The clef is here changed to its lowest, and the little book is a lot of tremolos about old age, death, and faith. The physical just lingers, but almost vanishes. The book is garrulous, irascible (like old Lear) and has various breaks and even tricks to avoid monotony. It will have to be ciphered and ciphered out long--and is probably in some respects the most curious part of its author's baffling works.

_Walt Whitman_.

Note:

[49] Published in _Lippincott's Magazine_, August, 1891, with the following note added by the editor of the magazine: "With _Good-Bye my Fancy_, Walt Whitman has rounded out his life-work. This book is his last message, and of course a great deal will be said about it by critics all over the world, both in praise and dispraise; but probably nothing that the critics will say will be as interesting as this characteristic utterance upon the book by the poet himself. It is the subjective view as opposed to the objective views of the critics.

Briefly, Whitman gives, as he puts it, 'a hint of the spinal marrow of the business,' not only of _Good-Bye my Fancy_, but also of the _Leaves of Gra.s.s_.

"It was only after considerable persuasion on the editor's part that Mr.

Whitman consented to write the above. As a concise explanation of the poet's life-work it must have great value to his readers and admirers.

After the critics 'have ciphered and ciphered out long,' they will probably have nothing better to say."